Aloha Parents/Guardians,
The first week of face-to-face instructions with grade1 students went well. At first, students were unsure of what to do, but now in the middle of the following week, things look much better. Students are now talking in the cafe and playing with each other more during recess. Morning drop off and afternoon pickup protocols are both coming along nicely too. This will all change again starting on Monday, November 16th, as our kindergarten students will be coming back to school for face-to-face instructions. Because of the increase in students attending on campus and the lack of socialization amongst kindergarteners, we expect some behavior and social issues. I need to emphasize several points in order to make this transition as smooth as possible for these kindergarteners. First, parents will not be allowed to take their child to the classroom so please be sure your child knows their teacher’s name and classroom number. They will be shown to their room by adult helpers and we will line them up according to their teachers. Kindergarten classes do not start until 8:10 a.m. so there is no need to rush them to school. Best time to drop them off will be between 7:45 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. as the grade 1 students should have been taken to their rooms (around 7:50 a.m.) so there will be lots more room at the cafe. There should be less cars and traffic at this time. Please remember to drive slowly. Adult helpers will be by the curbside to help your child out of the car as well as taking a quick no touch temperature check. What is important and will help make this transition back to school as painless as possible is the after school pickup. For kindergarten students, school ends at 2:25 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday and 1:40 p.m. on Wednesdays. However, if you arrive early “do not park” and stay in your car waiting for your child in the circle driveway. Grade 1 parents will be using this driveway and spaces to get their children and they are here between 2:15 p.m. – 2:25 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday and 1:30 p.m. – 1:40 p.m. on Wednesday. If you get here early, please park and wait in the lower parking lot until your child’s school day ends. If your child is enrolled in the A+ program, please be sure to pick them no later than 5:30 p.m. For pick up, all the students will be sitting on chairs arranged on the patio in front of the cafe. When you are driving up be sure to have those slips of paper with your child’s name and grade (room number) clearly and boldly written in large print on it. If you do not have this slip of paper ask one of the adult helpers and we will give one to you. Do not leave your car! Please be sure to look around to make sure other cars are not overtaking or passing you on your left side. This driveway was meant for two cars to use at the same time. There should be not as much traffic, so drive slowly, be careful, and be courteous. If everything goes well and there is no spike in the COVID-19 spread, our next step will be to have grade 2 students returning for face-to-face instructions in mid-December, date to be announced. Just be aware that all of this is subject to change as the health and safety of all our students and staff is our first priority. Currently the YMCA does offer before school care (BSC), but a heads up is that it might be in jeopardy unless enrollment increases. We all understand that many families cannot use this service since their child is not currently in school, but I would recommend a phone call to Jon Cho (541-5275) of Nu‘uanu YMCA to let him know that you will be utilizing their program as soon as your child is permitted to come to school. Otherwise, with the lack of numbers, this program will not be offered here. It might be a moot point by now, but please know that at Nu‘uanu we never used Acellus as a standalone and exclusive teaching program. If or when we did use it, it was a supplemental program and none of our teachers used it more than once or if at all. Last thing you all need to be aware of is if you plan to have your child continue distance learning (DL) you will need to do the same for the remainder of this school year. Currently all DL students must remain in that category until this semester ends. No official word on this yet, but if you still opt to do DL then you may have to notify the school. I will let everybody know about this as soon as the school is made aware of it. If you decide that you will not continue to do DL then let your child’s teacher know by November 30th. Reasoning for this can become problematic for any teacher to have students switching on them during the course of the school year. At best, the teacher will likely be making changes to their lesson plans and at worst, your child might have a totally different teacher. Either way it requires adaptation to the way they are learning and some students can do this better than others. Please know, but he does not want to make this public knowledge, at the end of this year, December 31, 2020, Andrew Shimada will be retiring as our Cafeteria Manager. He has been here for about 10 years. After graduating from Nu‘uanu, Iolani and the University of Washington, he has held many diverse jobs before settling in on cooking. He was a cook in the private sector for years before moving to the state in this same capacity. We wish him well and will sincerely miss him. Mahalo, James Toyooka Comments are closed.
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AuthorJames Toyooka, Principal Archives
December 2020
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